This op-ed
piece by Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist now heading Saudi billionaire Prince Walid
bin Talal’s new Arabic news channel Al
Arab launching at year’s end, appears in Arabic today in the Saudi-owned newspaper
al-Hayat
It’s time Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan intervened
militarily to end the Syria crisis.
Why shouldn’t they when the situation there is
getting worse by the day?
They don’t need a Security Council resolution under Chapter
VII of the UN Charter.
During the Jordanian-Palestinian war of September 1970,
Hafez Assad massed his troops along the border with Jordan without a Security
Council resolution.
Turkey too moved her troops to the Syrian border in October 1998,
and threatened to invade Syria over its embrace of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
and its leader Abdullah Ocalan. Turkish tanks were set to cross the borders
into Aleppo without waiting for a Security Council resolution.
Look at the proposed tripartite military intervention
as a limited regional campaign like so many others.
What could happen, a Russian intrusion? Impossible.
Yes, the Russians would be furious and protesting. But the United States and
the West would stand up for Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and at the minimum prevent
blatant involvement by the Russians.
It would be a brisk and incisive campaign that would
leave no time for the Russians to even airlift fresh arms supplies to the
regime.
Iran, on the other hand, would never enter a full-scale
war to save Bashar al-Assad. It would surely be foaming at the mouth. Some of
its men would fight alongside the regime and perish with it.
But Iran won’t be foolhardy as to invade Bahrain or
Kuwait for instance in retaliation to joint Arab-Turkish intervention to help
out the Syrian people.
Without bona fide intervention, the Syria crisis
would carry on for years. Lines have been drawn in the sand. There are no key
figures left to carry out a palace coup or defect but hasn’t yet.
Sectarian officers and gang leaders are now
commanding the regime’s war. It’s their war. Instead of turning against Bashar,
they would protect him. Even if he fell, they would name a substitute from
their lot. Their motto is, “Victory or death.”
Any Saudi or Turkish military analyst must recognize
that the regime is winning as many points as it is losing. The regime has
regained control of Douma
and Darayya on the outskirts
of Damascus. It has made up its mind and committed not to treat residents there
as people it sought to win back but as enemies whose back it wants to break.
The last few days bear witness to the summary
execution of hundreds of residents in townships vacated by the Free Syrian Army
(FSA). We’ve seen images of countless bodies of victims with hands tied behind
their backs and gunshot wounds to the head.
The people summarily executed were not FSA insurgents
whose military strategy is to hit and run back to the rural areas. The victims
were civilian inhabitants who tolerated the presence of FSA fighters in their
townships. Opposition sources say
the summary executions by regime forces did not distinguish between FSA
sympathizers and people who had stayed put at home.
The regime’s message is clear: “Whoever is not on my
aside is against me.”
Before us is an example of the type of civil or
liberation wars that “devour their own people” and peoples close by.
Who can say the Syrian liberation war won’t last as
long as the Algerian
liberation war, or that the Syrian civil war won’t last 15 years such as
the Lebanese civil
war?
Are Saudi Arabia and Turkey ready to tolerate decade-long
and wide-ranging hostilities on their doorsteps liable to lead to Syria’s
partition and regional intercessions, let alone spillovers – into Lebanon, for
instance?
The agreed wisdom is they are not.
Conventional wisdom also posits that a blitz is a
must-have.
A thrust by the Saudi and Jordanian armies advancing into
southern Syria and a push by the Turkish army into northern Syria would secure quick
gains. In the south, Deraa and Houran would be liberated within hours. Concurrently,
Turkish forces would have moved into Aleppo in the north. Citizens would rush
out to the streets to welcome their fraternal saviors. The regime’s armed
forces would be in a state of shock and awe.
The next question would be when to move toward
Damascus, which would already be within easy reach of Saudi and Jordanian
forces.
Any military expert would tell you the Syrian army is
seriously overstretched. Its supply lines are faltering. Its morale is low and
it is hardly able to ward off FSA fighters.
Saudi Arabia could also assemble a bigger Arab
striking force by co-opting contingents from Morocco, the UAE, Qatar and maybe
Egypt. President Mohamed Morsi is already on record saying he wanted to help
out his brothers in Syria.
But the concern is of the Syrian regime resorting,
when on its deathbed, to “Option Zero” – namely the use of missiles armed with
chemical warheads, including nerve agents.
The scenario is costly.
Strategy analysts in Adana will hasten to kill off
the idea of a blitz because of the danger. They would say:
We’re not intervening. The free Syrians are fighting
and are ready to die for their freedom. So let’s suffice with supporting the
FSA.
But someone is bound to retort:
This has been our position for a year. We could not
help the Syrians win their battle. We were reluctant to arm them. Some of us
feared the arms would find their way into the wrong hands, specifically
al-Qaeda.
We are trying to determine the extremists and
moderates Syrian armed opposition ranks. But by hesitating, we are promoting
extremism and driving the Syrian insurgents who are being bombed by regime
warplanes into the arms of al-Qaeda and its bigots.
This is not to mention also that the idea of jihad in
Syria is bound to draw into the battle Arab recruits, Saudis included.
We have to do something short of total war and beyond
sending arms and communications equipment to the FSA.
A surgical airstrike against the chemical and
biological weapons facilities is a good idea. It won’t only rid the regime of
such a ghastly weapon, but deal it a mortal blow and pave the way for our rapid
intervention.
The costs of civil strife in Syria dragging on for
years far exceed the costs of a rapid intervention to end the crisis within
days, notwithstanding the risks involved.
The regime’s sectarian army is exhausted, horrid and
wobbly.
It’s time someone dealt it the coup de
grâce for the sake of the region,
the Syrian people and the additional 5,000 Syrians who will be killed in
September and each month thereafter.
Indeed that’s the average monthly death toll in Syria
until we see Arab and Turkish troops being greeted by Syrians packing Marjeh Square and waving
Syria’s independence flag.
